Politics + Media 101

John sits down Ken Moriyasu, Washington correspondent for Japan-based news magazine Nikkei Asia. A returning guest to PM101, Ken joins the program to discuss the U.S.-Japan alliance, a fitting topic after Prime Minister Fumio Kishida's recent state visit to Washington. Ken describes the shifts in Japan's military strategy, Japanese policy towards Ukraine and Israel, how Japan is preparing for the potential return of Donald Trump, and the impact of Joe Biden's unconventional new ambassador to Tokyo, Rahm Emanuel.Read more from Ken here: https://muckrack.com/kenmoriyasu

Entrepreneur and political strategist Dmitri Mehlhorn shares strategies to defeat Trump in 2024. Topics include innovative political campaign tactics, Democratic messaging challenges, grassroots lobbying for immigration, and analyzing criminality in American politics. The discussion also covers voter communication strategies, new information boundaries, and ethical discourse.

Political analyst Rachel Bitecofer discusses the flawed assumption of the Democratic party, the threat of a kleptocratic hybrid state, and the use of negative partisanship as a strategy in swing states. She also explores the impact of the media ecosystem on political messaging, the dangers of autocracy, and the challenges of building a left-wing equivalent to Fox News.

John sits down with journalist and author Joshua Green, author of The Rebels, a new book on left-wing American populism. Joshua previously wrote The Devil's Bargain, which profiled Steve Bannon and the populist movement in the Republican Party. John and Joshua discuss the overlap between these two populist camps, the differences among key leaders of the progressive movement, and whether a left-wing populist candidate can win a presidential election.Get the book here: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/586025/the-rebels-by-joshua-green/

Justin & John sit down with Yaroslav Trofimov, chief foreign-affairs correspondent at The Wall Street Journal. Yaroslav has covered wars and terrorism in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq, and now reports on a war in his own home country, Ukraine. Yaroslav's new book Our Enemies Will Vanish offers stories and lessons from the first year after Russia's massive escalation against the country.Buy the book here: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/731521/our-enemies-will-vanish-by-yaroslav-trofimov/

To learn more about presidential impeachment, Justin and John sit down with Professor Michael J. Gerhardt, the leading scholar of American impeachment law. Gerhardt appeared as an expert witness in the impeachments of both President Trump and President Clinton, and he recently appeared as a witness in the impeachment inquiry of President Biden.Gerhardt is the author of many books on impeachment. His latest book on the subject, The Law of Presidential Impeachment: A Guide for the Engaged Citizen was released on January 9th, 2024. Find the book at the link below.https://nyupress.org/9781479824694/the-law-of-presidential-impeachment/

Journalist Aaron Rupar joins Justin and John to discuss President Biden's accomplishments, Trump's legal troubles and what to expect in 2024. If this conversation interests you, please check out Aaron's newsletter Public Notice here: https://www.publicnotice.co/

On Sunday, December 10th, Argentina inaugurated a new president, the eccentric "anarcho-capitalist" Javier Milei. To learn about this new chapter in South American history, Justin and John sit down with Ariel González Levaggi, an academic at the Pontifical Catholic University of Argentina and senior associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).Ariel describes Argentina's journey from a global economic powerhouse to a stagnant, indebted nation, explaining why voters have turned to the colorful Milei for radical solutions. He also offers some commentary on Venezuela's threats to invade Guyana in the north of the continent.Read more from Ariel here: https://www.csis.org/people/ariel-gonzalez-levaggi

Justin and John sit down with  Astead Herdon, national politics reporter for The New York Times and host of the podcast “The Run-Up.” Astead recently published a major profile of Kamala Harris, including an exclusive interview he conducted with the vice president herself. With the PM101 team, he discusses his reporting on Harris, describing her difficulty building a national public persona despite her successful career as a prosecutor in California.Find more of Astead's work here: https://www.nytimes.com/by/astead-w-herndon

In a special crossover episode, Justin and John sit down for a wide-ranging conversation with the hosts of Beyond Politics, Paul Hodes and Matt Robison. Paul is a former U.S. Congressman who represented Justin and John's home district in New Hampshire. Matt is a senior political strategist who served as Paul's chief of staff. Together, the group talk about the changes to the American political system that they've observed over their careers, with shifts in media and technology dramatically reshaping how the public understand and respond to news events.For Part 2 of this discussion, listen to the Beyond Politics podcast here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/beyond-politics/id1369437819